History

Because honey is good but back then so rare..

That is why Juha Nuutero decided to get his own bee hive at the age of 14. Year was 1976 and Juha who was interested in nature and plants in generally talked his parents into investing his new hobby. This is how everything got started and new experiences were received. Back then the bees were quite “angry” when disturbed and didn’t want to give up the honey easily. Half a bucket was the harvest of the first years and no need for honey packing, honey was consumed straight from the bucket.

Beekeeping stayed as a hobby through the college years. There were no premises for the beekeeping operations. Honey extracting and equipment storing was in the hands of the frinds and family, compensated with honey of coures.

1988
Juha, gratuated as horticulturist decided to acquire premises of his own, where he could do the beekeeping as living and and at the same time settle down. Earnings were low so there was no other option than to go to bank and get a loan for the house. At the bank, banker checked the calculations of the honey productions and said “I think that your bees have never before produced what you have calculated”, so the loan wasn’t granted. Fortunately giving up has not ever been included in Juha’s vocabulary, so finally the right bank was found.

1990
As the banker had said, it’s hard to estimate how much bees will produce, so Juha decided to expand his number of hives. As a result Juha didn’t have time to go to “proper” work and beekeeping became his primary source of income.

1991
Finnish beekeeping association nominated Katariina and Juha Nuutero as beekeepers of the year. Already back then they were significant queen rearing company in Finland’s scale. When the beekeeping became the main business there was need for investing to proper premises and honey extracting equipment. That ment more credit and increasing the production.

1995
Old premiese started to be to small for the groving business so the new land for the premises were acquired from Vesilahti.

1998
Beekeeping operations were moved to new premises and honey extraction became in a new extraction room.

2000
Juha and Katariina Nuutero moved next to production facilities and they were nominated as entrepreneurs of the year.
 

2002
Varroa mite had been in Finland for some time now and new methods against it were needed. From friend’s (Kaspar Ruoff) advice they fought against bureaucracy and got permits for thymol treatment “pillows” manufacturing and sales.Thymol is a phenolic monoterpene extracted from garden thyme and it doesn’t leave any leftovers to honey. Since the it has become popular method against varroa treatment due to its acceptance in organic honey production.

2003
Honey Paw was first honey producer in Finland to brand it’s products. Creamed honey could be made so flowing that it could packed in a squeeze bottle.

2004
Company changed it’s name after the brand name: Mesimestari Oy. Honey marketing was started nationwide and Mesimestari’s honey was distributed in to Finnish chain stores.

2007
Mesimestari’s honey was sold the fourth most in Finland.

Over the years honey equipment sales has developed rapidly and Mesimestari / Honey Paw has many leading innovations and patents in the area.

Honey Paw was first to introduce mortise-tenon joints in polystyrene hives. Also they we have brought heat resistant plastic frames on the market. We patented our Slit Uncapper, hive bottom with ventilation board and designed intagrated pollen collector to hives bottom.

2012
Mesimestari was devided in two companies: Mesimestari Oy / Honey Paw ltd. and Apiary of Nuutero. Both companies are still have the same owners Juha ja Katariina Nuutero.
Apiary has around 1000 beehives in use and the are located in Southern-Pirkanmaa region.

2013
Patented Slit Uncapper achieved second place in Apimondia (Kiev) in most innovative products serie.

2015
Honey Paw will attend at the first time with own stand to Apimondia 2015 in South-Korea Daejeon. Second time we priced silver in Apimondia innovation with Honey Paw- products. This time our innotative ventilated bottom with pollen collector catched price. Read more about pollen collector.

2016

Honey Paw is now the most succesful honey packing company in Finland. New honey extraction facilities needed to be build in order to keep up with the growing company and honey production. We introduced some new honey processing equipment for comercial beekeepers like Honey Paw wax press and new model of uncapping machine